The Boy Who Walked The Wall
by RoderickThorpe
Summary: Set in the Potter universe, but not at Hogwarts. This is the story of a muggle who, through pain and loss, learned the truth of the magical world. Largely set in America, around the time of the books and a bit after, this story is a parallel view of a world where a lucky few wield enormous power over an unwitting and hapless many.
1. Chapter 1

The five men knew where to meet, the perfect location for dark dealings. A street in Midtown manhattan, mere blocks from Times Square, with all its garish light and thronging hordes of shoppers and gawkers. This street, however, had somehow avoided the Giuliani treatment, was still a shadow of New York's former self. Ample scaffolding provided cover for the many homeless who camped here, shuffling over from the Port Authority spare change corridor, or waiting for pickup from one of the many charity vans to the relative safety of a shelter. A large construction site offered even more darkness, as well as the accompanying rats to truly keep the tourists away. The only open business on this street tonight was the dirtiest bar in the city, evidenced by a red lightbulb lit above the door, frequented by antisocial alcoholics and a couple of adventurous youth. As well as three wizards and two vampires.

Dressed to a man like villainous thugs, with varying lengths of coat in varying shades of black, they would have aroused suspicion had there been anyone around to suspect. But here they had cash and tipped well so the lone bartender just thought of them as clients. They had one drink apiece as they drifted in, then left together, smiling wry smiles and clearly with practiced intent. It was when they walked out that Nelson Locke spotted them, from three stories up in the construction site, broomstick in one hand and wand in the other. He tapped an enchanted bit of wood in his pocket with his wand to get his team's attention. At the east end of the street, pretending to be running a hot dog cart, was Sampson Eppes, the veteran of this group. An Auror for the last twenty-five years, he'd been on countless stakeouts just like this. Tonight, like always, he assumed they were minor mischief-makers, wizards out to have fun with the non-wizarding populace, maybe minor traffickers in illegal potions. Nothing more. At the west end, completely invisible under a dark awning, was Lucy Dearborn. Lucy thought they should be ready for some serious action. She tended to be overly cautious and expect a Demonic presence at every call. Nelson usually sensed some disappointment in Lucy when their calls didn't live up to her expectations. They both acknowledged that they saw them as well.

The five men were making their way down the street to the entrance of the construction site, towards Eppes and soon right below Nelson. As they approached the site, one of them pulled out a wand and did a quick concealment spell, making them all but disappear to any Sans around. Nelson fell somewhere in between his two partners in his feelings about this case. He didn't expect, nor did he relish, anything particularly exciting tonight. But he was concerned about the presence of two vampires in one place. As a general rule vampires avoided each other, mostly as a survival mechanism; it was assumed that if a lot of them got together in one place, there would be a lot of pale people showing up at hospitals with suspicious marks on their necks. That would create trouble for the Wizarding council, which would create trouble for the vampires. Department policy was that vampires are to be allowed to function as long as they dont start spreading their disease and avoid killing their prey. As most vampires were also wizards of some skill, the Council tended to side with them over Sans-rights activists. But two of them together, with three other wizards, could mean trouble. Nelson was on edge.

Once in the site, they made their way out of Nelson's view. In his pocket he felt the twig move in a way that told him Sampson was on the move, and that he should try and find a better vantage. He saw Lucy briefly flitting between shadows to go around the block, trying to find another exit to cover. Nelson hurried around a corner, to another wing of the new construction. They were building it as a large L, with a courtyard in the center; this would give Nelson a good view of the guys on the ground floor, except that he was too high up. He wanted to avoid using the broom, since some wizards could detect even small amounts of magic use around them, so he clambered down a ladder awkwardly, wand in pocket and broom under arm. Nelson did most physical tasks awkwardly, but he made up for it by being a very good spellcaster. He was also very observant, with perfect eyesight enhanced by potion, and the hearing of a hare. This is why he usually played lookout. He found a spot on the second floor, behind a large machine of indeterminate use. The five suspects were in a circle about twenty yards away and ten feet below him, in the dark but silhouetted by the streetlights. He could hear soft speech, in a rhythmic pattern that told him it was probably a spell. He moved the twig to tell Eppes to get closer, who did. Nelson didn't know where Lucy was, but assumed she had the back exit covered. The men continued to chant.

Then they stopped.

A new figure had emerged onto the scene. A man in a tan trench coat, with dark gloves and a wide brimmed fedora. He looked like a detective in old Sans novels, and other than his clothes, his features were completely unremarkable. Remarkable so, Nelson thought. He tried to make out the face, which Nelson could see fairly well in a light the man was walking towards, but there was nothing to make note of. Seemingly a white male, though he couldn't really attest even to that. He had a face but no features. So there must be some kind of enchantment at play, one that disguised someone by making them unrememberable. Very clever work.

After a few moments thinking about this Nelson realized that the new player must have walked right past Sampson Eppes, who would have told him by twig about it, but he'd felt nothing. Nelson contacted Eppes, but got nothing in return. Tried again, nothing. By now the five men were watching the new man approach with some puzzlement and a lot of hostility. The new guy was neither expected, nor welcome. Nelson figured they took him for a wayward sans wandering into the wrong place. The figure moved a bit drunkenly, with a stumble here and there and a slight lack of grace. Probably from the same bar they had been in. Nelson began to worry about what these toughs would do to him, an unwanted intrusion in their secret spell-casting. But if he was just a random, non-magical bystander, how had he gotten past Eppes?

Just then the situation erupted. The guys broke their circle to face the man, the man was clearly saying something to them as he took a small object out of his coat pocket. He held the object up, then seemed to drop it accidentally. When it hit the concrete floor it exploded, in a bright flash with a low thudding sound. When Nelson had blinked away the flash he saw that the three wizards were on the ground, and that the two vampires had attacked the man. He signaled to Lucy to breach the scene, they needed to stop this now before it got out of hand. Nelson had never seen a vampire fight but he knew it was not a pretty thing, and this guy had two of them on him.

Lucy messaged him back that she was on her way, but not right there. Nelson, wondering where shed ended up, jumped on his broom and took off, wand at ready. He flew to where he had a good view of the scene, and was amazed at what he saw. He'd thought he'd be saving someone from two vampires and three bad wizards, but by the looks of things the vampires might need the saving. One of them flew twenty feet into a wall as Nelson approached, and the second was just getting up to attack again having been knocked down. The man in the coat was just as fast as the vampires, and was engaging them fist to fist. The three wizards were just getting up from the disorienting blast, so Nelson did a sneak stupefaction spell on one, making the other two turn his way on guard. He had time for an expelliarmus on one of them, but then had to fly out of the way of the last one's curse. With Nelson out of the way for a moment, the third wizard turned to the intruder, just as he was smashing one of the Vampires in the face repeatedly with a gloved hand. A stunning curse was deflected with the back of the vampire, the second vampire attacked and was met with a dagger directly in the chest. But the dagger must have been made of wood because the vampire screamed and began to turn to cinder, from knifepoint outward. The rest of the fight happened in the time it took Nelson to maneuver into postition to act. A spell was deflected by the man's arm, somehow. The spell hit one of the wizards in the chest, knocking him back; the remaining vampire attacked ferociouly, and the man jumped at least ten feet in the air over him, landing behind and then instantly piercing his heart with the apparently wooden dagger. The wizard screamed "Avada Kedavra!" and let loose that most forbidden of curses, which was met, and absorbed, by an outstretched hand with some sort of crystal in it. The other wizard, who'd regained his wand by now, tried to move behind the man, closing in on him. The man, whose hat had flown off by now and whose features were distinguishable ("I'll have to look at that hat later," thought Nelson) pulled what appeared to be a modified revolver out of his coat, flipped a dial, pulled back the hammer, and spun and shot the wizard behind him. The wizard, surprised that his quick anti-firearm spell hadn't worked, was hit in the shoulder. Another killing spell came flying at the man, who expected it, ducked, and let the spell hit the wizard he had just shot. In fact, the spell hit the precise spot where the bullet had lodged. There followed a flash that blasted back at the caster, exploding his wand, along with his arm, and leaving all at the scene, other than the man in the coat, the stupefied wizard, and Nelson, dead.

Then the man ran.

"Where the hell is Lucy?!" Nelson thought, as he flew after the man. "And who the hell is this guy?!" The man had taken off much faster than any normal person could, and ran up the side of a wall to the second story of the construction. As Nelson flew after him he flew over the spot Eppes had been standing watch. He saw the older man asleep (he hoped) next to the fence, underneath a tarpaulin.

His quarry had somehow gotten up to the fifth floor and was running faster than Nelson had ever seen anyone run towards the gap between the construction and the building next door. Nelson flew a bit above for a good shot, then tried to stupefy the man. He had obviously heard the spell, because he spun in mid air and swatted the spell out of the air in front of him like it was no more than a horsefly. He landed on the next building, ran to the edge of it, leaped at least six feet up and fifteen feet outward over the street below. Even this jackrabbit of a man wasn't going to make it all the way across a two lane street, but then he pulled something out of his coat, pointed it at the edge of the roof he was aiming for, and fired something that looked like a huge frog's tongue, which grabbed the edge of the building and then retracted quickly, bringing the man with it. He sprung onto the building and was off again.

Nelson, who had grown up non-magical, couldn't help but think he was chasing Spiderman, if spidey dressed like Columbo. The man banked around a corner, and Nelson followed right on his tail. As he made the tight corner, the wall ten feet in front of him exploded into dust, blanketing him and filling his eyes and mouth. Nelson had to stop to avoid running into anything, he quickly cleaned out his eyes and proceeded after the escaping man. He was very very fast, but there was no way he would get away from a wizard on broomstick, so this chase was just going to be about wearing the guy out. Nelson flew higher and caught up with the guy, who was on rooftops and running uptown through hells kitchen. Nelson wondered if they would have to deal with any obliviations over this, or if they could just hand it over to the NYPD to investigate a particularly agile cat burglar.

After a few blocks of running the man quickly turned west towards the Hudson River. Nelson worried about losing him on the waterfront amongst the piers and parks, but definitely preferred the relative quiet to the midtown rooftops. As he thought this he flew lower to keep the guy in view and the guy leaped over tenth avenue into another construction site. This one was the beginnings of a skyscraper, with about sixty feet of beams and trusses put together, along with cranes and lots of other equipment. The guy figured he would out maneuver Nelson, but Nelson was a good flyer, no Quodpot hero, but pretty good. This is what he was thinking as he flew into the building at the fourth floor and his broomstick stopped keeping him in the air completely.

Something had stopped the flight of this broomstick, and he fell a full story before crashing into the boards that made up the floor and rolled twenty feet to a painful stop. As Nelson drifted out of consciousness he saw the man in the coat leap into the air and swing his way uptown, out of view and away.

Nelson Locke awoke in a bed, more ache than man. His head hurt the worst, followed by his shoulder, his back, his wrist, and his knees. He looked around and saw he was in the infirmary at the Uptown Aurors office. As soon as he was awake a nurse came in.

* * *

"How're you feeling, Mr. Locke?" she said, cheerfully.

"Like I had a boxing match with a troll."

"Well, I mended about a third of your bones, and dealt with a fairly serious concussion, but you should be right as rain in just a few hours. Here, take this for the headache." She handed him a small vial of potion, which he gladly gulped down. Within a few moments he was feeling much better, with just some minor aches left in his body. He got up out of bed just as his boss, Abraham Shadwell, walked into the room.

"Put some damned clothes on man, you have an interview to conduct!" he said, with characteristic brusqueness. Shadwell had been an auror for the entire twentieth century, it seemed. He'd fought in the Last War, put down more rebellions and flare-ups than most knew existed, and had no tolerance whatsoever for magical misbehavior.

"Just getting to that, sir. Apparently I had a concussion until ten minutes ago."

"And I had a heart attack this morning, but you don't see me weeping about it, now do you? Glad to hear you're all right, though. Hell of a night for everyone. Four dead, one two locked up, and Sampson still taking a nice cat nap. Nurse can't seem to wake him up."

"How about Lucy, sir?" Nelson was feeling a mix of worry and frustration about Lucy. If she was okay, that would turn fully to anger at her abandonment of him back there.

"Oh, Dearborn is peachy, boy! She's just caught her first Boogeyman!"

"Wait, we got the guy in the trenchcoat?" By this time Nelson was dressed and walking down the hall to the detention wing of the Aurors office. As they passed people he was treated to some smug looks, and some relieved, depending on how people felt about him personally.

"Sure did, Dearborn turned a rooftop into the Labrea tar pits, then wrapped the bugger up with rebar. Seems the guy couldn't be taken down directly. He passed out at the scene, so she called for backup and a sweep team. The miracle is that not a single Muddy saw any of this shit happen! PD is dealing with a raft of calls about a cat burglar or somesuch, but not a single obliviation! I'd say that, at least, is commendable, even if you did fall off your horse." They reached the old man's office and stepped inside to find Lucy and two others, only one of whom Nelson knew, waiting for them.

"Everybody, Locke is just fine, so stop worrying and lets figure out who the damned hell this trenchcoat fellow is. Is he awake yet?" This was directed at Lucy, who replied with a shake of the head.

"Okay, fine, lets take some time to figure out as much as we can before we go at him then. How's the other guy, the wizard Locke zapped? Is he up and talking?" This question was directed at Martha Bolling, a squib who worked at the department in a technical and Sans-affairs capacity. She was the smartest person Nelson knew, a woman who took the unfortunate position given to her by chance and turned it to her advantage. She had advanced degrees from Harvard and Columbia, the two best schools with both Sans and magical colleges. About ten years' Nelson's senior, with thick black hair and a maddeningly sexy grey streak, she was dismissive of most people, wizard or otherwise. Nelson was completely in love with her.

"He's up, but he's not talking. Nor will he, I think. Seems to be completely unable to speak about what happened, or who he is. He can ask for water or say something repugnant to me, but when we ask about tonight he starts sweating and shaking. Clearly some kind of nesermonis curse. A strong one, too."

"Any idea who he is?" Nelson asked, hoping to redeem himself in his colleagues eyes by getting right back into the game.

"Oh, yes, of course. We have his wand, and consulted with Isham Trumbull up in Boston, based on the perp's accent. He told us the guy's name is Levi Small. We dont have any record of him, but Boston does. Mostly petty stuff, but most of it anti Sans." She spoke the last part with contempt.

Commandante Shadwell was impatiently pacing, clearly angry at the huge gaps in their understanding. "What about you? They sent you here for a reason, right? Do you recognize the guy?" He was talking to the last person in the room, the one Nelson didnt know. He was about Nelson's height, early thirties, with red hair and some freckles. He had been following along looking a bit amused and a little bit lost.

"I haven't the foggiest, frankly." Nelson was surprised when he spoke with a british accent. "My friend told me to come here after you people sent out the word about this guy. Seems I might have met him when I was a teenager. But I don't remember that guy in there, that's for sure. I don't know how I can help, really."

"Well, arent you a fucking font of wisdom. Who the hell sent you, anyway? I thought you were an eyewitness, the only man to see this phantom alive or some such nonsense! Are you even an Auror?"

"Nope. I used to be, now I run a joke shop in London."

"You have to be fucking kidding me!" Shadwell was starting to lose it, and Nelson was not excited to be here when he did.

"Look, my friend Harry, who's head of the Aurors in England, sent me here because they've been looking for a guy who fits the description you sent out. If this is really the same guy then I met him in the woods during the war."

"Which war?" Lucy asked.

"What?! What do you mean, what bloody war? THE War!" He was incredulous, like someone had asked him which Merlin he was talking about.

"I think he means the British Civil War." Marth chimed in, as usual the one with the answer.

"Whoa, is that what you Yanks call it?"

"That's what everybody calls it! Lets move on. So, Mr. Weasley here can't confirm or deny that this is the guy The Brits think he is. So he is pretty much useless to us. No offense, Ron."

"None taken. Can I stick around, though? I've never been to the States before, and I don't want to disappoint my wife. She's impressed that I'm contributing."

"Sure, just keep quiet. Now, Bolling, do you have anything on the stuff you found on the guy?"

"Well, yes and no. There's a lot of it, and I'm unfamiliar with most of it. a lot of it looks custom made. We expected a lot of Sans paraphernalia and weaponry, but most of it is magical in nature." Martha was far from disappointed that she didn't know everything, Nelson could tell she was relishing the challenge. In fact she seemed annoyed to have to be here explaining all this instead of investigating whatever they found on this guy.

"The hat is definitely magical. I noticed that at the scene. Keeps his features indistinct." Nelson was glad he had any information at all to share. "He also had some kind of grappling device. I never saw a wand on him, and he never cast any spells in the fight."

"What do you mean he never cast any spells?" This had turned everyone's head.

"He didn't, not a one."

"Impossible. He killed two wizards, two VAMPIRES, knocked out two Aurors, and evaded pursuit on foot. There is no way he didn't cast a single spell."

Martha: "Well, we didn't find a wand, that's for sure."

"Then how did he kill those guys?!" Shadwell cried, for the first time in a long time surprised in the line of duty. He directed the question at Nelson.

"Well, the vampires he killed by hand. He just beat the shit out of them and then stabbed them with a stake. The two wizards he used their own spells against them."

"And how did he do that?"

"He had some way of deflecting spells, which he used against the others. Then he used that pistol to shoot one of the guys, which didn't kill him but definitely stopped him in his tracks. And when the other guy tried to Kedavra him, he ducked out of the way, and the spell hit just where he had shot the guy. It seemed like it had some power to deflect back to the caster, who pretty much just exploded. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen."

"Not a fucking chance this is true!"

"I swear!"

Lucy chimed in "I wasn't as close but I did see it go down, and that pretty much squares with what I saw. Plus, he never sent any spells my way during the chase. At one point he used that gun to shoot a wall, which made that crazy dust cloud, but it definitely wasnt a spell. Not a normal one anyway."

"Jefferson's blood! Okay, lets go have a look at his stuff, everyone, see if we can figure any of this out before our guy comes to." With this, Shadwell walked out of the office and down the hall, expecting everyone to follow. Nelson fell in last next to the British guy.

"Hey, I'm Ron Weasley." He said this sheepishly, like he was in trouble, but kind of excited to be.

"Nelson Locke. I'm an Auror here."

"Yeah, I figured."

"First time in the states, eh?"

"Yep. Pretty similar all in all. Except the language."

"What do you mean? We all speak english, right?"

"Sure, but its different enough. For instance, you guys keep calling people Sands. Who is that?"

"Sans? It means non magical people. Old people call them Muddies, but that's kind of derogatory, so most avoid it these days."

Martha, who was right in front of them, chimed in, "I believe you call them Muggles. Our term is an abbreviation of _Homo Sans Magicum_, which was what Jefferson called them. Before him they were called Muddles, I believe because they Muddle through life. Hence, muddies." She loved this sort of conversation.

"Oh, right. Okay." Ron Weasley, it seemed, didn't.

They reached the evidence room, a rectangular stone room with all sorts of warding spells deep in its walls. This was where they examined dangerous artifacts and potions. They walked through a thick steel door, and saw what they'd found on the man with the coat.

"Bugger me bow-legged!" Weasley was impressed.

So was Nelson. On a table at least twelve feet long and four feet across was arrayed the man's possessions. It was clear that Martha had done the arranging, because it was neatly organized by apparent use and then size. In front of them were about a dozen knives, a revolver, some sort of air gun, many many bullets, assorted crystals, chains, and totems; boots, gloves, a mask, a vest with quite a few pockets, as well as bits of leather and chainmail on it, and then a number of contraptions Nelson couldn't come close to identifying.

"All this was on this one guy?" Lucy asked, clearly astonished.

"Yes, most of it in the pockets of the vest or belt. He has about thirty small spacial charms on this vest alone, so he could carry all this without it showing. The coat also contains strong concealment charms, which seem to help as well."

Nelson noticed something: "Wait, he wasn't wearing those boots, nor those gloves."

"In fact he was. As soon as the coat came off, the rest of the outfit became visible. This way he was able to walk the streets armed for war without attracting any attention. Now, lets go through it all and see if it rings any bells." Martha was at her best when lecturing a crowd.

"Left to right I have it organized by what I think it does. On the left are weapons, right of that are wards and armors, then gadgets that seem medical or potion related, and lastly things I have no idea about. We'll start with weapons." Marth pointed the knives, one of which was clearly the wooden stake used to kill the Vampires. "The knives are actually the most recognizable things. All old, from various parts of the world, all crafted before the Global ban on enchanting Sans tools and weaponry. Here is an impressive set of throwing knives from twelfth century china, enchanted to hit their mark and be thrown with the speed of a longbow. Next a dagger from the Sikh, similar to the ceremonial religious ones, but heavily enchanted and extremely sharp. This next piece took me a while. It's a stone cutting tool from 18th century Japan. the sharpest thing here, and almost unbreakable. he probably uses it as a tool more than a weapon. This is a wooden stake, made of ironwood and lacquered, as well as enchanted, to be as sharp as a steel blade. Clearly for killing vampires."

"On to the guns. This is some sort of air gun, but with something other than air. There is definitely magic involved, but I don't know what. What I do know is that it shoots silver tipped wooden bolts, so it is also for killing vampires, with the occasional werewolf in there as well. The revolver is fascinating. Definitely american, from the frontier wars. I believe it is the last remaining Trumbull colt, enchanted illegally to fight the Wizard-warriors of the Cree. Of course, it has also been modified, with these chambers filled with unknown magical substances, as well as the gauges on the side, and this on top, which I believe is a ground down piece of wand, perhaps to enchant the bullets. But I am really speculating on that one."

After this she went on to describe an assortment of wards and charms, built into the man's clothes. Some of them were ancient amulets and bracelets, dismantled to harvest just the magical pieces. The vest had pieces of magical armor on it, just enough to get the protection without weighing him down. The gloves had a lot of different charms on them, but Marth couldn't identify them all. Same went for the boots. But when she held up the boots, Weasley chimed in.

"I think I know what these are. Could he jump super far?" He asked.

"Yeah, its like he was spring loaded." Nelson replied.

"Thought so. The heel of this boot looks just like that from Boyles' Bouncing Booties. I sell them at my shop. They're for little kids, they make you bounce like crazy. Super fun if you're a kid. But it looks like he took a bunch of them apart and combined them, maybe to bounce higher. Come to think of it, the toe tread is familiar too. It looks like it came from a Weasley Wall Walker. These shoes we made that let kids walk on the walls. I don't think this would let him actually walk on the walls, since he only used part of it, but I bet he could run up them. Very cool." Ron was impressed, and still having a lot of fun.

"I hardly think he went to a joke shop to stock up on supplies. This guy's is obviously a serious operator. Why wouldn't he just enchant the things himself?" Lucy was being dismissive of Ron.

"Well, whatever, I'm just sayin' this looks like stuff from my shop."

"What if he can't enchant anything? What if he's not a wizard?" Nelson asked, his mind starting to put things together.

"Again, impossible. Even if he has a bunch of nifty gadgets, most of it clearly illegal to possess, there is no way this guy isn't a wizard. He understands magic, he uses magic, even if he doesn't use a wand, and he kills wizards and vampires." Shouted Shadwell.

"He could be a squib." Martha said this surprisingly meekly, with a level of sensitivity Nelson hadn't seen in her. He thought it must be a sore subject despite her strong exterior.

"That could be, but how does he do all the spells?"

"Well, let's ask him. He's probably awake by now." Shadwell was trying to bring the conjecture to a close, but just as he finished, something came flying across the room, grabbed a poster off the wall, and flew back to smack into Ron Weasley's hands.

"Wicked! This is definitely a modified Gribbit Grabber! He took, like, ten of them and put them together. This thing would pull you up the side of a building!"

"Weasley! Did I not tell you to be quiet and observe! Don't touch anything else!"

"What's a Gribbit Grabber?" Asked Nelson.

"Its like a long frogs tongue, for grabbing stuff from other people. The one we make is only about ten feet long, and can only grab stuff that weighs a couple pounds. He took a bunch of them and put them together to be longer and stronger."

"Enough, we're leaving! Nelson, get ready to interrogate the suspect. We're giving him a veritaserum, so you just have to ask the right questions. Can you handle that?"

"Yes sir." Nelson said, sheepishly.

They assembled in the detention wing of the office, Nelson and Lucy to conduct the interrogation, Martha to observe and record, and Weasley just to be somewhere. Shadwell left to yell at other people, Nelson assumed. The guy with the coat was in a cell, tied to a chair with unbreakable bindings, with one hand free enough to grab a glass of water. He'd been brought in there as soon as he woke up and was pronounced healthy enough to be questioned. Nelson looked at him through the mirror for a while beforehand, evaluating what he saw. The guy was about thirty, perhaps 6 feet tall, with a very muscular build. His face had a large scar running down the cheek, with more scars on the forehead and chin. He had the face of a guy who'd been punched plenty, and the hands of a guy who'd punched back. He looked tough, and a bit dangerous. His hair was close-cropped brown, his eyes a light blue, which gave him a piercing stare. He stared right at the mirror, even though from his side he could only see a brick wall. It was unnerving. Nelson steeled himself and went in the room.

"I'm Nelson Locke, Auror with the Department of Magical Justice. Do you know where you are?"

"I assume I am at the Aurors Office near Columbia University." His voice was a gravelly baritone. He sounded intelligent, aware, and not at all drugged, which is how people usually sound when on veritaserum.

"That is right. Do you know why you are here?" Nelson was attempting to use his most authoritative voice, so as to assume compliance, as well as bolster his own confidence.

"You attacked me and brought me here. Well, your partner did. You fell off your broomstick." This was spoken without contempt, as a statement of fact. It still stung.

"You killed four men, attacked Aurors, and are in possession of innumerable illegal enchanted artifacts. For starters." Nelson had to fight to keep control of himself after that last dig. "Lets start over. What is your name?"

"Nick McShane."

"Okay, next, are you a wizard?"

"No."

"Are you a squib?"

"No"

"But you know what those things are?" The man looked at Nelson with a slight smirk, as if he'd just been asked a very stupid question.

"Yes I do."

"Are you any other manor of magical creature?"

"You mean a vampire?"

"Or anything else."

"No. I am just a regular old _Homo Sans Magicum._" McShane's use of the complete Jeffersonian nomenclature gave Nelson a chill. He was talking to someone who knew much more than himself. After a pause, he resumed the questioning.

"Were your parents magical in any way?"

"That would make me a squib, which I already denied being." This was just bordering on annoyed, as if Nelson was wasting his time. "By the way, I'd like to ask for a lawyer now, even though I assume your government doesn't allow for that sort of thing. Thought I'd get that on record just in case."

"You haven't been charged with a crime. This is just an interview to understand what happened last night."

"Then I'm free to leave?"

"No. You're not."

"Alright, I just like to know where I stand." He settled in as best he could while being bound to a chair. Took a sip of water. "Please, continue."

Nelson looked at him for a moment, trying to plan a path forward. McShane wasn't being cagey, or uncooperative. It was just that Nelson didn't know where to start. If this man was telling the truth, and he almost certainly was, given the veritaserum, then he was something Nelson, along with any other Auror in living memory, had never encountered: a Sans with a full working knowledge of the magical world. If that was the case, then he should just obliviate him here and now. However, he had killed four men, attacked Aurors, and seemed to have a deep, long-term understanding of the magical world. To obliviate that much, he first needed to learn how much there was. He would also have to stand for his crimes, although Nelson was unsure that the wizard courts had any jurisdiction over McShane. He looked at Lucy, who had been silently watching from the corner of the room. She gave him a subtle nod to proceed. A lot of help that was. Nelson decided to start with the events of the last night and move backwards.

"Lets talk about last night. Why were you at that construction site."

"For the same reason you were. To confront those three men and their two pets."

"Pets? Do you mean the two vampires?" He had never heard someone speak about them with such disdain. No one in the magical world particularly relished the existence of Vampires, but they were mostly looked on as an odd minority.

"Yes, the two leeches. Though they weren't my prey. The Wizard you have locked up was. Levi Small. I was there to stop what they were attempting. Like I said, same reason as you." He looked at Lucy, then at Nelson, perhaps to put himself in the same pack as them.

"Levi Small. Yes. He's told us a lot about last night. I'm just trying to fill in the gaps." Nelson went to a very old police trick, pretend you know everything.

"No he didn't. He has a Neserminum curse on him, without a doubt. He sweated and stammered and nearly pissed himself when you asked him anything. You gave me a truth potion, the least you could do is not lie to me." Again, slight smirk, no hostility, no flared emotions. McShane was still in charge.

"Fine, you caught me. I had to try." Another cop trick, humanize yourself, give him the old 'tryin' to do my job' routine.

"You grew up non-magical." McShane tilted his head slightly, a twinkle in his eye, an 'I know you' look.

"What makes you say that?"

"That was a cop trick. A real cop trick, not a magic cop trick. I know you weren't a real cop, so you must have grown up with Sans TV. Magnum PI, perhaps. Maybe Law and Order."

"Again, you got me. And it was Mike Hammer. Now, what was Levi Small trying to do?"

"You don't know. You were just there to investigate something fishy. Wow. You stumbled onto something very big and think that I'm it. I'm not it. Had I not shown up you would have seen what 'it' is, and would have been too scared to do anything."

"I get what you're doing. You have to tell the truth so you deflect the question and tell me your version of the truth of this situation. But you still have to tell me the truth. What were they trying to conjure." He had his hands on the table, was leaning over McShane, all but yelling at him, trying to break through his defenses. The truth serum always worked, but there were ways of deciding what truth to tell. Nelson would give him no choice.

"Now you're onto something. What were they trying to conjure? A demon, Auror Locke. Nothing less than an honest to god demon."

* * *

"This is bullshit!" Shadwell was pacing the office outside the interrogation room, smoking a long pipe, chewing on it until Nelson thought he might actually eat the whole thing. "These five schmucks were conjuring a DEMON?! Nobody's done that in three hundred years. And you know why? Because demon's are ASSHOLES! Nobody can control them, and as soon as they get here they just try to kill any wizard within reach. We didn't even need a law against demonology, people just figured it out on their own!"

"He's telling the truth, as far as he knows it. THey were definitely up to some group magic. The circle, the chanting, the whole bit." Lucy was speaking for Nelson, protecting him from Shadwell, it seemed.

"I don't really care anymore what he thinks these guys were doing, I want to know what the hell HE was doing! And how he did it! and who the hell he is! And where he got all that crap!" He was yelling as much to himself as at the rest of them, frustrated with the lack of progress.

"Okay, here's what we'll do: Bolling, you take Merlin here and keep looking over the guy's gear. Dearborn, I need you to follow up on this Levi Small. Talk to Boston, and then talk to the other Bureaus. Someone has to have something on this guy. And lets try to figure out the two stiffs. Oh, and I suppose the bloodsuckers, but good luck there. Probably six hundred year old Bavarian princelings or something. Locke, back at it. Start from the beginning. Find out who this joker is, and how he managed to avoid obliviation this long. Alright, get outta here!" Everyone moved to execute their orders. Nelson took a self-writing quill into the room, along with a stack of paper, in order to keep a record.

"Do you need anything?" Nelson asked when he got back inside.

"Some more water, please." The glass filled itself. "It's not at all surprising that you people are so easy to kill. You don't do anything for yourself."

"So you're saying you've killed wizards before?"

"Yes."

"How many?" The veritaserum would protect against empty boasting, but Nelson still had to ask.

"A lot. Too many to count. Most of them in the war, though."

"Which war are you talking about?" This was becoming a common question.

"The clandestine war in Europe that no one wanted to acknowledge. The one that didn't have an ultimate Villain to vilify. The quick spread of Anti-sans Mago-fascists across a continent, inspired by a snake-faced creep in England. It hasn't been given a snappy name like the Muddy ones have." Here he finally got emotional, angry that Nelson didn't know what war he spoke of. Its not that Nelson didn't know about the British Civil war, and he'd heard rumblings in Europe about similar happenings. But it was far away and far behind them, plus nobody he knew had died, so he didn't think about it much.

"Alright, that war. So, how did you get so good at killing wizards?"

A pause. "That is a difficult question to answer. I'm forced to, but can't put my finger on a simple answer. The best I can do is to say that my entire life, from age twelve on, has been about getting good at killing wizards."

This was a startling thing to hear. Despite the occasional flare-up of differing points of view, as well as the normal disagreements any people have in life, the magical world was a remarkably peaceful one. To hear this fiery hatred toward his kind was deeply upsetting. The Mundane world had plenty of psychopaths and killers. The Magical world, quite a bit fewer.

"Then I guess we'd better start at the beginning. I think I'll have some food brought up."


	2. Chapter 2

"The first thing I should tell you is that I can not be obliviated." Wes Mitchum said, as if he was telling Nelson his astrological sign. Except what he was saying was most likely the key to everything. If a Sans couldn't be obliviated, then there was no way to keep the secret of magic's existence safe, not once that person had seen something impossible.

"Why not?" was all Nelson could think to say.

"I don't know. And I doubt I ever will, since you wizards seem unable to grasp or explore new concepts. I've asked a few learned old sages in my time, and when they couldn't find a precedent in an ancient tome or prophecy, they just said I must be lying." Here again was that contempt.

"So, how did you first learn about the existence of magic?" Nelson asked this almost casually, trying to simplify matters, shorten what was most likely going to be a long conversation. He spread some cream cheese on a bagel and offered it to Mitchum, who accepted it, took a large bite, swallowed, took a sip of coffee, and answered.

"Two wizards and a vampire tortured and killed my family in front of me when I was twelve years old. That's how I learned of the existence of magic and the type of people who wield it."

I grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. We raised dairy cows and organic vegetables. My folks had met in college in Minnesota, my dad, who had grown up on a farm, in the ag program; my mom, a hippie from the east coast, in theater. They fell in love, got married, traveled around for a while, then moved back to take over my grandparents farm when my grandma died. They raised conventional cows and organic vegetables, to make my mom happy.

I grew up working on the farm, but also, reading and playing music. My mom wanted my older sister and I to be well rounded, not small-minded hicks like some of our neighbors. My childhood memories are of working with animals, the smell of dirt, running in the fields, reading endless novels, playing piano and violin, and eating good food. I loved my family.

One regular night in the fall, when I was twelve, I was up in my bed reading a fantasy novel. I heard a strange zapping sound, then some laughter, and then my dad storming downstairs. I got out of bed and peeked through the crack in my door, through which I could see down the stairs to the entrance to our house. There were strange men there and my dad was confronting them. He had a shotgun in his hand, but the guys were completely unconcerned by it. After a few minutes of arguing, there were more weird sounds and then my dad stopped yelling. I came out of my room to see better and I could see my mom and dad walking into our living room in front of the guys. Just then my sister grabbed me and pulled me down the hall to her room.

My sister was five years older than me, tall and beautiful. I don't think she was the smartest kid in the school, and she might have been mean the way pretty teenage girls can be, but she was always protective of me. Now she was hiding me away in her room, in a little secret closet she'd found next to her bed years ago. She told me not to move or make a sound. She got up and went to the door, just as the door came flying open. Two men came in, zapped my sister, and she just stopped. I could see all this through a hole in the wall, watched the men tell my sister what to do, and watched her do it, as docile as one of our cows. One of them led her downstairs, while the other one went on searching the house, probably for me.

He found me quickly enough. I heard him say some strange words, then he came into the room, following a glowing stick that was pointing its way right to me, through the wall. He hissed another strange word and the wall in front of me shattered, flying outward. I froze, terrified, and the guy laughed at me.

"Got you, you little muddy prick!" He crowed, before saying the same word he'd used on my sister and shooting a bolt of light at my face. It felt hot for a second, like putting your face in an oven; then a tingly sensation went through me, and I got a little nauseous. Otherwise, nothing felt different. One of the other guys came in the room.

"What are you doing, Short? Some redecorating? Come on, bring the kid. Sylvain's waiting to start the fun." The two men were young, somewhere in their twenties. They both looked rich, I remember thinking. They had nice clothes, well-combed hair, no dirt on them. Not like the people I grew up around. They also spoke differently, without any of the midwestern twang I was used to. They sounded more like how my mom spoke.

They told me to move, to go join my family. I listened to them, but thought about running as soon as I could. I didn't get a chance before reaching the living room. I saw my parents standing stock still, watching me come in. Their eyes were the only part of them moving. I could see that they knew what was going on, but couldn't do anything. My sister was standing in the middle of the room, naked, facing the third man. He was also young, but there was something about him that seemed very old. He carried himself like he was in charge, and used to being so. He looked at me briefly and then back at my sister. I was embarrassed to be seeing her naked. I thought about how mad she got once when I walked into the bathroom and she was getting out of the shower. She must be even madder now.

The guys told me to go over by my parents, and I did. I was scared, but also really confused. Why would my dad be letting these guys do this? My dad was a pretty big guy, and tough. I know he used to get in fights when he was younger, and my uncle would tell me that he won them. So if he was letting this happen, there must be some reason. I watched as the older seeming man told my sister to bend over. Then I felt my dad quiver next to me, trying to move, it seemed. He was frozen. Somehow these guys had made him stand still. I knew then that my dad wasn't' okay with this, and that we were in trouble.

The older guy started to touch my sister while the other two watched and snickered. I felt my body get warm, my scalp tingle, and I broke. i ran screaming at the guy and jumped on top of him, knocking him down. I screamed "Get off my sister you asshole!" and punched him in the face. He was surprised, but quickly recovered and threw me across the room into the wall. I fell to the floor, lights flashing in my eyes.

"Did you not bother to Hex him, Aaron? Did you think he would just be a nice boy and watch it all happen?" He said this to the guy who zapped me. He spoke with an accent.

"I did! I did an imperius on him, I swear!" It seemed he was kind of scared of the guy, who I was now thinking of as the leader.

"Hmm, you did, did you. Well, it seems it didn't work. Did they not teach you this at school? I think you should go practice your charms when you get home, little boy." He came towards me and pulled out a stick. He aimed it at me and I felt a force wrap around me, squeezing my chest and then pulling me upward. He flicked the stick and I went flying up to the corner of the room. I was stuck to the ceiling, but I could use my mouth, so I screamed some more swears at him. He flicked his wand again and my mouth closed, locked shut against my will. I couldn't talk or move, I could just watch.

I won't describe in detail what happened next. I'll just tell you that they raped my sister, then my mom. The older guy grew fangs, bit my sister, and sucked her blood for what seemed like forever. She fell to the ground and didn't move again. My dad somehow managed to move a little bit, spooking the guys. They proceeded to toy with him, throwing him around the room, flicking their wands at him to make him bleed, setting him on fire, and eventually doing that same slave-curse they did in the beginning, telling him to stab my mom in the heart. He did it, then they killed him. I watched all of this.

Lastly they brought me down from the ceiling, asked me if I wanted to die like my dad. I shook my head, and they laughed.

"Clark, please obliviate this boy. He's been through a lot." Sylvain said. "Though I'm fairly certain no matter how good a job you do, he'll never quite be the same. Aaron, lets clean this up, make it look presentable for the local constabulary." He said this like he was their boss, and they were all just doing their jobs. The one he called Clark pointed his wand at me and said "Obliviate!"

Another flash hit me in the face. More burning sensation, and then a feeling like getting punched in the forehead. I fell down, gasped, and then blacked out, finally having had enough of this night.

When I woke up I remembered everything.

"I'm so sorry." Nelson said. He'd been rapt by Mitchum's story, completely caught up in this horrible tale. He could understand where this man's hatred of wizards came from now.

"Thank you, but you didn't do this. And I don't blame all wizards for what happened. Not anymore." Wes's tone had softened a bit, and he looked down at his coffee for a minute or so before taking another sip and continuing.

"When I woke up, the police were there, and they had a blanket around me and were trying to comfort me while also lightly interrogating me. They concluded that my dad had killed my mom and sister and then shot himself, sparing only me. I tried to tell them that that wasn't what happened, but nobody listened. After they heard my side of it, I was sent to a number of psychologists, given a number of drugs, and eventually sent to live with my aunt and uncle in Philadelphia. The farm was sold to pay for a wrongful death suit my mom's parents had brought against my dad's estate. My childhood was completely erased in a matter of months." He was tearing up by this point. Staring into the corner of the room.

"Do you know what happened to the men who did it?" Nelson asked, thinking that he might want to look into this crime, if it had really happened this way. There was no statute of limitations for this kind of crime, and he would love to bring these guys to justice.

"Yes, I do." Mitchums eyes hardened and he looked back at Nelson, defiant and strong.

"Okay, what happened?"

"I don't want to tell you that right now, and the Veritaserum wore off a about five minutes ago." He sipped his coffee again.

"Then why were you still talking?" Nelson asked.

"I wanted to finish my story. Not enough of your kind have heard stories like this, and I want to honor my family any way I can. Plus, you have Small in custody, and aren't going to let him loose anytime soon, right?"

"That's right…"

"And you won't let me loose any time soon, so I'm not worried about a demon attack, and I might as well pass the time somehow, and these are pretty good bagels, so why not tell my story? I wouldn't mind some better coffee, though. I wouldn't have thought magic cops would drink the same swill normal cops do."

Nelson had to agree. "Coffee beans actually have some magical properties, so its really hard to produce magically. Thus we use the same crappy machine our mundane counterparts use. But you're right, if we're going to be here awhile, let's get something better to drink." With that Nelson got up and left the room, hoping to see how the others were faring in the investigation. Also hoping to find someone to send for coffee. He found Shadwell pacing outside.

"How's it going in there? Did Copperfield give up his secrets?"

"Not really. He told me his family was killed in front of him by wizards, and that he can't be obliviated. That's as far as we got."

"For Hobbes' sake, that's all?! A muddy who can't be obliviated, with a lifelong vendetta against wizards!? What could go wrong?" He swore some more under his breath as he moved along, still chewing on his pipe. "Keep at him, find out where he got all those toys of his!" He yelled over his shoulder.

Nelson went to the front desk of the Auror's office to find Algak, the department's Goblin receptionist. She was exactly where she always is, behind the desk and speaking into a number of flames at once.

"Hold on, please, Mr. Trumbull, I'll get Mr. Shadwell here as soon as I can. Thank you! Why, hello, Auror Locke, how can I help you?"

"Hello, Algak. I was wondering if there is any way to send down for coffee from Joe? I have a long interview and can't stomach much more of the department brew."

"Of course, Auror Locke, just give me a few moments. Are you in room 3?" She always knew an amazing amount of what was going on. Algak was the first female Goblin Nelson had ever seen, let alone met, and he couldn't help thinking of her as a grandmother, even though by Goblin standards she was a young woman.

"Yes, Ma'am. Thank you very much." Algak went back to her bank of flames, Nelson to his interview.

"So, you moved to Philadelphia, and then what, started hunting wizards?" Nelson had poured them each a cup of far superior coffee, saw down, and gotten right into it.

"Before we get back to it, suppose you could loosen these bindings? I need to move around a little bit or I'll cramp up. You already know that I am toothless without my gear."

That seemed like a reasonable request to Nelson, and also an opening. "Sure, let me remove those bindings completely, in fact. No need for them anymore. And since you brought it up, lets talk about that gear. Where did you get all of that stuff?"

"We aren't even close to that part yet, Auror Locke. You'll have to wait until we get there." said Mitchum while Locke undid the binding charms on his chair.

My aunt and uncle were religious people. Childless on account of infertility, they were overjoyed to have a young one to bring to the church with them. I was pretty lost when I got to them, completely introverted, terrified of the city, unwilling to talk about my family at all. So I went to the catholic church with them every sunday and started to attend parochial school. It was a huge change from my upbringing, but also provided a level of structure that was initially welcome.

Church was fascinating to me. I had never been in my life, had been raised agnostic, whatever that meant at the time, and had no more believed in god than I did in santa claus. But the church was beautiful, huge, serious and severe. And most importantly, the priests talked about the kind of evil that I had seen firsthand. There were devils, demons, and warlocks in the pages of the Bible, and the church offered a way to fight them. I was transfixed early on. By the time I was thirteen I was an altar boy, excelling in school and planning to become a priest. I spoke cryptically about my experiences in confession and the priests seem to understand. They didn't try to shut me up, they didn't doubt that I had seen evil. To them, evil and magic were real states of being that could be countered with prayer and grace. I all but memorized the bible. I wasn't exactly happy, but I had found a purpose and a focus for my rage and grief. It helped a lot.

My aunt and uncle were very pleased, of course. They not only had a child to bring into the fold, but that child looked like he might become a priest! This was as good a blessing as they could have asked for. I sometimes found their devotion stifling, though. There were times where my aunt's obsession with me and church seemed like a repudiation of my mother, which I was not willing to accept. She may not have led me to the church, but my mother was as full of grace as anyone, and I wouldn't accept any criticism of her.

But mostly, my new family got along great. At first.

After about six months as an alter boy, I was invited to stay after church with the father to meet a very important Bishop with a few of the other boys. I was excited, since I knew that if I was going to be a priest, this would be a big deal. I went with father Maginnis to his office and he told me to wait with two other boys. It was hot in the small room, especially with all our robes on, and the censers burning incense made me feel woozy. The other two boys seemed stunned, standing still and not even looking around. After a couple of minutes a man walked in wearing elaborate robes and a big hat. I knew him to be the Bishop Maloni.

"Ah, good, you're here Mr. Mitchum. Father Maginnis has told me a lot about you, how you are a defender of the faith and a true warrior of christ. Is that so?" His voice was deep and smooth. I felt myself wanting to make him happy.

"Yes sir." I answered meekly.

"Very good. Your friends here have already shown their devotion, now I want you to show yours. Stand still while I anoint you, son." Here he took out a long, thin wooden cross, which he pointed at me, flicked in a little curlicue, and which then shot a spark at my face. I flinched, this being the third time I this same thing had happened to me. The same sensation came over me, but I accepted it this time, thinking that if the devils could use magic, then so should the godly.

This feeling only lasted until he started to take one of the other boy's clothes off. No matter how much I had thrown myself into this world, this act was too close to the evil I had seen for me to accept it. I asked him what he was doing, and he looked at me with consternation. He picked up the cross again, aimed it at me, and something in my mind reacted. I grabbed the chain of the burning sensor and swung it at the Bishop. He batted it out of the way with his cross but it gave me time to break for the door. Right as I reached it I was thrown across the room, the same unseen force squeezing me I had felt before. The bishop towered over my prone body and cursed me for a sinner. He said he'd have to teach me the true meaning of faith and suffering, and swung his cross towards me. I grabbed at something to throw at him from the things strewn about around me. I found a large piece of crystal set into a golden circle, about the size of hockey puck, and swung it towards him as he sent a bolt of light my way. The light hit the crystal and bounced back into the Bishop, throwing him across the room with a giant crash, knocking him out.

I got up and grabbed the other two boys. They were still in their stupor, though, so I just ran away without them. There was no one else around, so I ran out of the church and never went back. I realized after a block of running that I still had the crystal in my hand, and as I looked at it I knew that I was going to have to understand this power people were trying to use on me, and to do that I would need more things like this crystal. That was the real beginning of my magical education.

I told My aunt and uncle that I wouldn't be going back to the church, or the catholic school for that matter. It didn't go over well. When my aunt pressed me, I told her about the attempted sexual abuse (I left out the magic part, having learned my lesson from the first time.) It didn't help much. We screamed at each other, and in the end she threw me out of the house. As I walked out the door, my uncle came after me. He had never been as warm with me as my aunt had, but now he hugged me warmly, said he was sorry, and told me I would stay with them, as long as I lived above the garage and stayed out of trouble. I agreed, and I enrolled in public school the next week.

Public school was pretty different from the Catholic one, and right away I knew I had little chance of a social life there. Since my parents died I hadn't really made any friends, but at least at catholic school I had a couple of buddies to pal around with. Because I spent so much time at the church, I had mostly been friendly with a couple of latino kids whose families had already decided on the priesthood for them. When I got to 8th grade at a public school in South Philly, I was as out of my depth as someone who'd just moved there from another country.

I started a few weeks after the beginning of the school year, and by the time I got there the social tribes were well cemented. That didn't bother me too much, since I was completely uninterested in even speaking with another person, let alone making friends. I wanted to be left alone. When i went home, I would go to my room and pace. I still read books, now with a ferocity I hadn't before. Whereas before I would read the things my mom had in the house, from To Kill A Mockingbird to Moby Dick, now I mostly read fantasy and science fiction novels. Fantasy gave me the sense that magic could be harnessed, and what I had seen looked a lot like magic. But mostly they took me out of the world I lived in, away from the memories that came to me uncontrollably. Away from the images.

In school, I tried to keep my head down, to just get through the day without crying or jumping at a noise. This made me exactly like the small, frightened kids who others called nerds or dorks. I still had my same curious nature, so I enjoyed class, specifically science and history. I was developing a sense that if I was going to understand what I had happened to me I would have to learn as much as i could about how the regular world worked. So I paid attention, and did well in school. I started to make friends with the dorks, and to earn the ire of the cool kids.

There were small incidents of verbal bullying every day in the hallway and locker room, but I was so insulated that verbal bullying didn't even really reach me. I just went about my business and said as little as possible to people. This seemed like how everyone wanted it. i was a weird new kid and thus a lightning rod for everybody else's insecurities. But one kid, Bob Carr, really latched onto me as a target, and one day in gym class he brought it out of the verbal realm and into the world of skin, bone, and blood.

The teacher was a failed football coach with a severe drinking problem, so imagine the oversight we received. We were playing soccer one day, and i was opposite Bob as he and two friends walked casually down the field with the ball. They figured everybody would get out of their way and they could just kick the ball in the goal (the true jocks were in their own, more serious game.) I didn't really care about sports, especially not this game, but something about this arrogance rankled me. It didn't help that there were three of them. They approached me and Bob said:

"Hey Mitchum, you gonna' get out of the way or do we have to pound the shit out of you?" I just stood still, looking him right in the eyes. He looked at his two buddies and then quickly kicked the ball right at my head. I caught it, and without even thinking threw it right into his face, about ten paces from me. It connected with a crack, Bob went to the ground, and his cronies came at me.

At this point I don't exactly remember what happened, just that blurry, animal recollection of smells and snarls, but by the end of the interaction there were three boys on the ground, bleeding, and one being dragged away by the Gym teacher.

Nobody ever picked on me in school after that, but neither did many people want to be my friend. That was fine with me, though.

After a few months of 8th grade I'd found a lonely stasis, doing pretty well at school, interacting as little as possible with my Aunt, and reading books in my room above the garage. I existed in a small square of city between school, home, the library, and the corner store where I got cheese steaks. I started to feel at home enough to risk thinking about the things that had happened to me. The books I read existed in either some distant past where magic was common or in a distant, magical future. I decided that magic existed now, and the people who used it lived in secret. Maybe some of the old stories were actually true but had passed into legend and now looked like the work of superstitious people who didn't understand how the world worked. The question that plagued me was, where were these people? If there were people who could cast magic spells, but they hid it from the normal people, then where would they live?

I started to look in the news for things that looked suspicious, things that resembled my family's death. I would cut out stories and take notes, posting them first on a little board above my desk, eventually filling the a wall in my bedroom. I wasn't very organized about it at first, but I learned as I went. By ninth grade I had a number of files, and a full wall of cork board to make connections. I hadn't found any wizards, but I started to make some connections that might lead me to some.

All this time my uncle Pat had watched me with trepidation and concern. He wasn't the guy to be a father to a kid like me, a distant, weird, obsessive kid who jumped at any touch. He didn't know what to do with me. But when I came home after my run in with Bob, face bloodied and with a letter from the principle, he had at least one answer.

"You should learn how to box." He said this to me as he handed me my tray of dinner at the bottom of my stairs.

"I don't like the idea of kids picking on you, and this neighborhood can be pretty tough sometimes. I know you won this fight, but it sounds like you just went crazy on these guys. I don't want you to get hurt, but i also don't want you to, you know, go nuts on a guy. You know?"

"...I didn't mean to…"

"Hey, it sounds like you had no choice. Even the principle made it seem like these kids were jerks. But I think you should learn how to fight. Might help. I know a guy who runs the gym down the street, if you want to go. I think you should." He looked me in the eye for a moment and walked back into the house, shoulders hunched. I thought about it, and decided that it couldn't hurt to know how to handle myself a little bit. That was how I started boxing.

Going to the gym was different from going to school. Sure, I was a new guy, but everybody was there for the same purpose, and the guy running the place didn't allow any bullshit outside the ring. His name was Percy Cheers, and he took me in right away. The first day he told me to just pound on the bag for as long as I could, to toughen up my hands, and i did. I felt awkward at first, but after a few punches I just started wailing, putting everything I could into it. After a few minutes of this I was flagging and sweaty, but I started thinking about the three guys and that gave me a new burst of energy. I spent five minutes putting everything I had into the bag, and by the end of it I had seven or eight guys around me watching. I finally ran out of steam and backed away from the bag. Percy Cheers put a hand on my neck and said "You punch like a farm boy, Mitchum. I like farm boys. Take a break and lets start working on your form."

From then on my life became a routine of school, gym, dinner, homework, magical investigation, and maybe some reading in bed. I made friends at the gym, as much as I could. My first few spars got ugly pretty quick, so I alienated a few of the kids my age, but the older guys like me. I was a bit big for my age, and hit a lot harder than I should have, so I started sparring with fifteen year olds. I got past the red blur phase of fighting and started to be able to look at it like a dance. The other guy was doing his moves, so I had to do mine. I was good, and it did more than anything to get me past the fear that had crippled me.

The other obsession, the investigation, finally bore fruit when I was about to turn fifteen. I had been at it for a year, covering my wall with photos and articles about things that seemed fishy to me. I had a map on the wall of the city, with pins at the places where these things happened. Finally, after a year, I saw a pattern. It was vague, but there was a cluster of incidents in the old part of center city, near all the tourist stuff. One night I decided to head there after I was done with my homework, donning a hoodie, a backpack with all the supplies i would need (soda and ships, mostly) and the crystal thing I'd taken from the dirty bishop.

It was a night in May, near the end of the school year. Warm enough to be out, but with a brisk wind blowing. I took a bus to center city and then headed to the epicenter of the strange phenomena, hoping to spot wizard or vampire. I don't know how I expected to recognize my quarry, but I figured I'd know a warlock if I saw one. I walked around the neighborhood, looking for a small alley that seemed to be the center of it all. I found the alley, but there was nothing down it but trash cans and garages. Nobody was on the street, even though it was only about eight at night. That alone seemed a bit strange, so I climbed up a fire escape across from the alley and settled into the shadows to wait. I waited a long time.

Hours later, after I had read half a book and dozed off a bit, someone came noisily down the alley towards me. He had come from down the alley, which made little sense, since there was nothing down there, just the empty back walls of buildings. I figured there must be a door I missed, and settled back in to doze off again. It was friday night, I was having an adventure, and it wasn't like my aunt and uncle cared where I was.

After another half hour, a couple came down the street to my right, wearing very fancy clothes. That didn't set them apart necessarily, this was the old part of town, but the man had a tophat on, which was pretty weird, unless they had been at a costume party. I saw that they were dressed very old-fashioned, from his tails and cane to her petticoats. I thought back to the only wizards I had seen, the three guys, but they had been dressed fairly modernly. With a few embellishments, like long coats, high-collared shirts, and then the one, Verlain, was wearing a scarf at his neck. While I thought about this the couple turned down the alley, with a quick, perfunctory look around. The walked down the alley, into the shadows about a hundred feet in front of me, and disappeared. There was no flash or anything, they just didn't come back out. I resolved to find the door that must be at the end of this alley somewhere, the exit I must have missed. I got off my perch, stalked down the tiny drive, from shadow to shadow, hoping not to be seen. I looked every bit the young hoodlum, ready to burgle someone's jewelry. But there was nothing in the alley. Just a dumpster and blank walls that went up three stories before windows. Where had these people gone? Where had the drunk guy come from?

While I looked for a door and pondered this problem another group was coming down the alley. I didn't hear them until they were fifty feet from me. Luckily I was in the shadows and they didn't notice me, so I jumped into the only cover available, the dumpster. I listened as they passed me, then I ventured a peek as they approached the wall of alley, and one of them took out a wand. He said "Revelatio!" and the bricks moved out of the way to reveal a doorway. When I say they moved out of the way, I mean that they just slid over each other out of the way. Then the people opened the door, and I caught a glimpse of what was through it, which was another alley, but this one warm with light and bustling with people in similar dress and these. After a few seconds the door was closed, the bricks were back, and I was alone again.


End file.
